


It's Quiet on Ahch-To

by flibbertygigget



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hamilton References, RIP Carrie Fisher, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 02:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9103267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: When General Leia Organa dies, the Force quakes at the loss.Kylo Ren makes his way to Ahch-To.





	

**Author's Note:**

> RIP Carrie Fisher

When General Leia Organa dies, the Force quakes at the loss.

On Ahch-To, Rey is startled out of meditation. Luke Skywalker shudders and stares out at the sea, trying not to cry. Kylo Ren stares at his grandfather's mask and for the first time hates the sight of it.

The more romantic of the Resistance say that she died of a broken heart after her husband's death. When Rey asks Luke for the truth, he tells her that it is more likely that the years of stress and fear had simply been too much for her to bear. A Senator, a rebel, and a general, he had been able to see first-hand how the years had slowly worn her away, especially after what had happened with Ben.

Kylo doesn't get any such explanation. He is left with the horrible feeling that he is responsible for the deaths of both his parents. Snoke continues to urge him to rejoice at their deaths, to allow his anger and hatred to take over, but he feels nothing but sorrow, and this is a weakness that he can't seem to push aside like so many others.

When Snoke gives Kylo a new mission to carry out, a new dark place to sink to, he doesn't try to fulfill it immediately. He tells himself that he will, he _will_ become strong in the Dark Side, just... not now. He needs more time for this, and a mission is the only opportunity that Snoke will give him to escape for a while.

When Kylo first arrives on Ahch-To, he doesn't have any idea that his uncle is there as well. He thinks that maybe, maybe Ahch-To is distant enough for him to escape Snoke's notice for a while. When he does eventually feel his uncle's presence, along with the girl, Rey, the one who beat him in spite of all his power, his first instinct is to run. He has no delusions that he is strong enough to take on Luke Skywalker.

But then Luke notices him as well, and he has no chance of escape, not when his uncle seems to have decided that Kylo being there is the Will of the Force.

At first they circle each other, like wary animals. Or, rather, Kylo is like a wary animal, while Rey and Luke are calm and self-assured. He would feel bitter about them not fearing him like they would have feared Vader, but he is too busy trying to find a way to ask his uncle for help.

Kylo sets up a tiny hut on the opposite side of the island. In the distance he can see Luke training Rey, and it makes his stomach do a weird squirmy thing that he can't describe.

It's quiet on Ahch-To. For the first time in a long time, Kylo has time to meditate, in the Jedi way rather than the Sith way. Every day Luke and Rey train a little bit closer, and Kylo pretends not to notice.

To Kylo's surprise, it is Rey who approaches him first. He would have thought that she, of all people, would have the least to gain from befriending. And make no mistake, that was what she was trying to do. Kylo responded in monosyllables and tried not to think about her face, red and dripping with sweat and tears after he tortured her.

"I'm sorry about your Mom," she says one day.

"Why?" Kylo says. "Why would you ever feel sorry for me?" He had seen her mind, after all. He had seen how she longed for a family. Shouldn't she hate him for killing not one, but both of his parents? Rey shrugs.

"I know a bit about losing people," she says. Kylo decides not to say anything more.

He doesn't know what compels him to join Rey and Luke one morning. Maybe it's the fact that he recognizes the katas that she is going through, the same ones that his uncle had been trying to teach him only a few days before he had destroyed the new Jedi Order. Maybe it's the Will of the Force. Whatever the reason, he approaches them cautiously and then, slowly, he joins in the exercise. None of them are using their lightsabers, just some long, straight sticks, and Luke is determinedly not looking at Kylo. It is only when the kata ends that his uncle finally meets his eyes.

"You can't just pick up where we left off," Luke says softly, and somehow that very softness makes the words more difficult to hear.

"I know," Kylo says. "I just thought-"

"You thought nothing," Luke says, and his voice is cold. "You murdered scores of children just for being Jedi, you destroyed an entire star system for no reason whatsoever, and you even killed your own father. How can you hope for my forgiveness, much less my teaching? You are in every way despicable." He turns and marches away, leaving Rey and Kylo staring after him.

"Well," Rey says, "that could have gone better."

"He's right, you know," Kylo says. He's surprised by how true the words sound to him. Suddenly he feels a crushing sadness. He is truly alone now. His parents are dead, and his uncle, the only living person who could possibly care about him after everything... "I really am irredeemable now."

"Hey, don't say that," Rey says. Kylo looks at her. Her eyes are bright and hopeful and utterly guileless. "I didn't like you, at first, but now... now you're sad and guilty and you're actually _trying_ to do something about it."

"That doesn't mean anything." Kylo is Dark. After everything he'd done, how can't he be?

"Master Skywalker told me about Darth Vader, you know," Rey says, almost offhand. Kylo's breath freezes in his throat. "Do you know how many atrocities he committed in his lifetime?" Kylo nods. How could he not? "And yet, in the end, he died a hero. He saved Master Skywalker's life, sacrificing himself in the process, and destroyed the Empire almost singlehandedly." She looks at him, and this time there isn't any pity on her face, only foolish hope and optimism. "If Darth Vader could change, I don't see why you couldn't do the same."

"I suppose dying a hero is the best I can hope for," Kylo says bitterly. He wants to live.

"Don't be stupid," Rey says. "You aren't nearly as far gone as Vader was, not really. I can feel it. I think you could come back, especially now." Kylo doesn't bother to correct her.

Despite everything, despite the gaping hole in his chest where his mother should be and the emptiness he feels where the Darkness consumed him before, Kylo, Luke, and Rey find a kind of existence there on Ahch-To. It isn't normal, not by a long shot, but it might be the closest they can come now. Luke was right, there was no going back to before, no picking up where they left off when Kylo fell. Before had his father and mother and _Force Kylo had never thought he could regret so much_. But this... this something next to normal... perhaps this could be enough.

Kylo knows that this reprieve is only temporary. Someday soon, Snoke will find him and try to bring him back to the Darkness that still flits at the edges of his mind. Someday soon, Kylo will have to make a decision, and quite frankly the idea terrifies him. But then he looks out at Luke and Rey meditating on the seaside cliffs, and he doesn't feel so terrified anymore. Somewhere, in the midst of the pain that nearly destroyed him when he felt his mother pass, Kylo Ren has found balance.

And so, when Luke finally puts his hand on Kylo's shoulder for the first time in years, Ben is able to accept it as the forgiveness that he never could have imagined.


End file.
